The lack of game console support sucks, but I think part of the issue is that the fees to set up an app in one of the console stores are prohibitive for niche services like this.

One of Filmstruck’s big points was the inclusion of supplements on the film’s “landing page” and access to commentaries/alternate audio tracks.

I agree that the dominance of Broadway adaptations are a problem with modern musicals, though I think the issue goes beyond just problems with stage/screen direction and choreography.

Greatest Showman infuriates me because there’s so much wasted opportunity. The film has some great ideas for musical numbers, but they stop at the “memorable image” level. The film doesn’t have the discipline to build them up into, well, actual numbers. So you get fun ideas like “What if she sings this while swinging…

I couldn’t disagree more. I vastly prefer Young Girls of Rochefort over Umbrellas precisely because it is more a traditional musical and not fully sung “opera.” For one, people’s faces while singing tend to be pretty boring. Two, I think Broadway, and as a result, Hollywood, have been tending toward more “operatic”…

True, you could never mistake the film for feminist, but I still don’t think it’s misogynist so much as it just doesn’t care about women, being instead focused on a insular world of men. Prostitutes and victims are just what these guys on the outskirts of the world encounter, but I don’t think the film affirms their…

I can’t remember what would mark The Wild Bunch as particularly misogynistic. There’s not much for women to do in it, but I don’t think it hates women per se, at least not any more than it does people in general. I’d take Easy Rider and MASH, to name movies of same era, to task over misogyny well before Wild Bunch.

Yeah, it’s Pacino playing Dustin Hoffman, which is fun. But then there’s that super-intense stare while on the telephone near the end, just to remind you this is still Pacino.

I’d really recommend the early William Wellman films they have on there, which are super-economical pre-code social-revolution bananas. Heroes for Sale (WWI vet deals with morphine addiction, labor agitation, corporate greed, communism, police brutality, and the Depression) and Wild Boys of the Road (kids in the…

Yeah, Rowling obviously wanted to write about a character on the Autistic spectrum, but the awkward combo of off-putting behavior and the author’s worshipful treatment of Newt makes him an awful protagonist. The film’s only tolerable when Fogler is around.

The problem with Kanopy is that its behind-the-scenes pricing structure for libraries restricts the number of films they’ll ever have available. Your library doesn’t pay X subscription fee; they get charged $120 for a 1-year license when more than 3 people watch a film. In theory, that means they could offer a wide…

Somewhat, but the Ming was more the world’s most successful peasant’s rebellion. Their complaints were more about taxation, mismanagement, lack of protection against bandits, agricultural issues, etc. Ethnic tension may have cost the Mongols the support of the Chinese elites, but it wasn’t a major issue.

Some forms/works of Chinese opera have a lot of acrobatics/martial re-enactments, so Opera schools often train pupils in acrobatics and martial arts. Also, different stock roles in Chinese opera stress different skills (some are more singing heavy, like “female” roles, and others more acrobatic) so pupils may have…

The Han controlled a bit of north Vietnam, but not much. Chinese control would wane and wax until 900 AD when Vietnam pushed China mostly out. Of course, modern China actually had a brief war with Vietnam in the late 70's after the US pulled out.

Yeah, there were calls to re-establish the Ming dynasty, not the Han, but given that there was no clear heir, it was mostly easy way (down with Qing, up with Ming) to phrase the return to a state controlled by the Han Chinese. That said, Han ethnic identity really only starts to take shape during the 19th century…

I briefly thought the article was going to be about a level where Lara Croft tries to order a drink at a Starbucks in Southeast Asia.

He’s shockingly great in Starting Over, a romantic comedy from 1979 written by James L. Brooks and directed a Alan J. Pakula of 70s conspiracy thriller fame (also sans mustache).

It’s funny how despite how funny this film is, Ang Lee’s other forays into comedy have all been dire. His approach to humor clicks with Austen/Thompson but seemingly nothing else.

Friendship between members of the opposite sex? I’m honestly hard pressed to think of anything where that’s the focus of the film (and doesn’t end in romance).

Yeah, that particular argument is deflated by the fact that ET was nominated for best picture.